


Precipice

by feveredsweetness



Category: Clone Club - Fandom, Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, One Shot, Orphan Black - Freeform, Substance Abuse, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, clone club - Freeform, instability, mental issues, mental trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-11 23:02:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7074178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feveredsweetness/pseuds/feveredsweetness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah seeks comfort in old habits, and finds herself at the edge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precipice

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one shot I chose to do, based off the bridge scene from Season 4's "The Antisocialism of Sex." I do not own any of the characters or original material extracted from this episode or the _Orphan Black_ series in general. 
> 
> I simply couldn't stop thinking about this scene, and wanted to write a deeper, internalized exposition for Sarah. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy. :)

Sarah leaned over the railing. From the angle the bridge offered, she could see the tracks extending into the engulfing darkness, away from the illuminated harbor of the train station. From here, the tracks seemed to call to her more persuasively; the surrounding city seeming distant and increasingly uninviting in all of its current, unwanted rhythmic streets and dodgy dives.

Her head shook as she took another swig of bourbon from her flask in attempt to flood out the flashes of recently formed memories.  
Mrs. S disowning her. The weight of Kendall’s death. The aromas of booze and sex she had submerged herself in reckless abandon. Hard drugs and—Beth. 

Sarah blinked as the stinging cold wind threatened to further her imbalance.

Always Beth. 

Her shallow breaths produced puffs of frigid evidence; each one punching the air and mildly obscuring her sister’s features.

Beth stood before her, eyes misted; lips chafed and hair pulled neatly into a bun. Her arms lay folded across her chest, as she observed Sarah in her current state. Her heels and purse lay on the ground beside her. 

Sarah drank again from the flask before meeting Beth’s gaze with a resentful scoff.

“You gonna follow me for the rest of my life?” 

Beth smiled, wary. 

“Tonight’s our last night, I hope.” 

Sarah took an unsteady, slouched step towards her, hand extended. 

“Cheers,” she said, offering the bourbon. 

Beth’s eyes flitted down as her lips twitched in amusement. Sarah chuckled. 

“Oh, shit. Sorry. That’s right. I’m talking to a dead person.” She spun around on her heels, catching the eye of a passerby.

“Whotcha lookin’ at? Ay! Wot!?” 

The stranger merely walked on, judgment shifting their features. 

“Piss off!” She threw the flask at them, causing their steps to quicken.

Beth’s laugh echoed in Sarah’s ears. She leaned against the rail, an eyebrow arching as a rare crooked simper presented itself.

“Need a ticket?” Beth offered her a credit card, then realized. “You maxed it out already. I forgot. It’s okay. Not like I needed it anymore.” 

“I always knew you had a sense of humor.” Sarah quipped. She came back over and stood next to her; hopping up onto the ledge which allowed her to lean over the rail further and peer down. She could feel vibrations within the metal. She knew another train was coming. Her stomach coiled in anticipation, the alcohol still scorching through her system.

“How much do you need to kill yourself, huh, Beth?” 

Beth followed to where Sarah’s eyes fixated. 

“It’s only about a 40 foot drop. Mess that up and you might just end up like Rachel.”

Sarah’s head spun. The tracks seemed to suddenly appear too close. 

_Fucking Neolution. Leda. The whole bloody lot. The whole bloody mess._

She glanced at her hands; stained. Just like she was stained. 

_“Deep down, we all want to believe we’re special.”_

_“The last thing I am is special.”_

The words spoken to Felix two years ago now rang throughout her ears. A hammer went to work on her head. Her eyes burned. 

To think Sarah had even begun to believe she was special; that she actually fit somewhere, finally, with her sisters.

She eyed her hands again and bit the inside of her mouth.

“What do you expect?” She growled. “Broken. Orphan. Always a bloody orphan, nothin’ else.” She spat onto the tracks below, her breath sour.

The vibrations increased in the metal which she grasped. A train soon passed beneath them both. Half of Sarah’s body was bent over the rail. Her eyes closed in distress and before she knew it, a roar clawed its way out of her throat, but ultimately faded into the train’s own. 

Her lashes fluttered upwards. Her focus hit the tracks so hard, her eyes stung.

She could do it. She could. She never wanted any of this anyway: the sisters, the conspiracies, the ceaseless violence and loss. The loss that was her fault. Her fault.

She wasn’t the glue. She was the exploding cigar; the impending wrecking ball that left only ruin and destructed hope in its wake.

_Hope._

The thought made Sarah’s heart seize. Bile was rising. A hard swallow sounded.

“No hope,” she choked. 

Her eyes fluttered to a close again before reopening. Her vision blurred, doubled, and then came back into sharp focus.

Sarah’s body lurched, her heels disconnecting from the bridge’s concrete foundation. 

“I fucked it up, Beth.”

Beth shook her head, lips quivering before going flat.

“We need you, Sarah. You have to finish what I couldn’t.” 

Sarah pictured herself on the ground below. Skull smattered across the tracks and gravel that laced in between; feet and fingers twitching, maybe, as the next train came to finish her off before her senses completely left her broken frame. Next stop: who knows?

Sarah’s teeth pulled against her lower lip. Her emotions swirled and seethed within her. 

Beth stepped closer to her. “There’s more than biology connecting us, Sarah. You can feel it, too. We need you.” Her eyes glistened, tears on the verge of spilling. 

Sarah said nothing, only stared at the railroad that held her, magnetized, yet she listened. Her gut knew that Beth was right. She did feel it. It never went away, no matter how hard she wished it would. They’d be better off, her sisters. 

“Bring us together, Sarah.” Beth said before turning away and dissolving into the night; gone with a gust of freezing air. 

“Sarah,” another voice pulled at her. She didn’t move. Her hands still gripped the rail, her fingertips numb.

“You have to be stronger than her, Sarah.” 

_Felix._

“This isn’t the way, is it? We can do this together, Sarah. We can figure this out.”

Felix’s voice remained calm though his eyes shone in distraught compassion. He watched his sister stand there, contemplating. He could see her registering his presence, his reasoning. He waited, an exhale caught in his throat.

After an agonizingly slow moment, Sarah stepped back and down from the rail and its raised ledge. Felix opened his arms. She clung to him, her face buried in his shoulder. She inhaled slowly, tears finally releasing and streaking down her cold bitten cheeks. 

Felix was here. Beth was gone. Both were right. She was needed, and she would be stronger.

Felix was here, arms encasing her; protecting her from herself and the terrible guilt. 

Felix was here. She was here. That’s all that mattered.

Felix kissed the top of his sister’s head. 

“Let’s go home,” he whispered. 

The surrounding city lights suddenly didn’t seem all that uninviting.


End file.
